Featured Article

Ciena Unveils WaveLogic 5

What were once a few strokes on a white board is today coming to fruition. Ideas like 5G, IoT and the edge are taking shape today, with network operators and service providers gaining access to the bleeding edge in networking technologies bringing these future-forward visions to fruition.

Ciena announced the WaveLogic 5 providing enhanced scale, programmability and intelligence from the edge to core, further extending the Web-scale whiz’s coherent optics market leadership.

“With WaveLogic 5 Ciena continues to push the boundaries of coherent optics and create a solution that will help reduce cost per bit and speed up our ability to turn up services more efficiently. This is critical in today’s highly competitive environment driven by our customers’ relentless demand for greater connectivity and bandwidth-consuming services,” noted Neil J. McRae, Chief Architect, BT.

Specifically speaking, the newly unveiled WaveLogic 5 will be delivered via two different solutions: WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) and WaveLogic 5 Nano (WL5n). The WL5e offers up to 800G of tunable bandwidth, which will deliver a number of advantages over 600G solutions, especially when 400G interfaces enter the data center. The WL5n provides customers with myriad form factors to meet specific network architecture requirements for applications – power, space, operations, etc.

WL5n is aimed squarely at the supporting footprint-optimized coherent solutions for 100G-400G applications, and the WL5e is capable carrying the data center into the next decade. Both will be generally available by the end of 2019 as part of Ciena’s Converged Packet Optical and Packet Networking portfolios as well as their Optical Microsystems portfolio.

“Ciena is an established technical leader in coherent transmission and a trusted partner to network operators seeking to deploy the most advanced equipment possible. With the WaveLogic 5 family, Ciena raises the bar once more for the optical networking market. WaveLogic 5 incorporates aggressive vertical integration coupled with a more open business strategy and a bold technical vision surpassing the goals of any of the earlier WaveLogic generations,” explained Andrew Schmitt, Directing Analyst, Cignal AI.

The adaptive network is the network of the future, supporting the barrage of innovation taking place today, and capable of driving the next generation of services and solutions to come.

Web-scale Networking

The idea of Web-scale IT is more than just another 'hot' buzzword or problematic disruption. What started with data center operators has become mainstream thinking in large enterprises, and it's now driving changes in service provider operations, as well. Web-scale tools that allow application development to move quickly have also created some challenges for service provider networks.